That in mind, we present to you London's biggest winners in each of its most medal-rich disciplines: swimming, gymnastics and track and field.

They came, they saw, they conquered—and now they're in a slideshow!

Lucky them.

Before we start, a quick primer on the format:

The first slide in each set features every multiple medalist in a given discipline, except the top medalist. The second slide contains a more intimate look at the top medalist and how he/she performed at these Games.

Men's Swimming: Top Medalist

In a meet that started with premature whispers of his decline, Phelps stormed back to win gold medals in each of his final four events. By doing so, he became the first man to three-peat in an Olympic swimming event, and he finished his illustrious career with 18 gold medals and 22 overall.

Women's Swimming: Top Medalist

Though three female swimmers earned five medals apiece in London, we're giving the gold-medal tiebreaker to Missy Franklin.

Which is good, because we love talking about Missy Franklin.

The 17-year-old owned this meet, both by virtue of her in-pool performance and her poolside demeanor.

She won individual gold medals at both backstroke distances and finished no worse than fifth in any of her seven events. Combined with an aw-shucks personality that had fans and announcers going gaga, the Colorado native seems an obvious choice as the new face of American swimming.

Men's Gymnastics: Top Medalist

By dint of our previously established tiebreaker, Zou Kai—not Japanese sensation Kohei Uchimura—nabs the title of most decorated male gymnast.

Though that may seem unjust in light of Uchimura's victory in the individual all-around, it helps highlight what a sneaky-good meet China had.

Lacking an elite all-around talent and nursing late injuries, the Chinese came in relatively under the radar. They responded by running away with team gold and medaling in four of six apparatus finals.

Olympic veteran Zou Kai led the way, winning gold on floor exercise and bronze on high bar. The 24-year-old now has six career medals, tying him with Li Ning and Li Xiaoshuang as the most decorated Chinese gymnast of all time.

In some sense, he delivered, becoming the first athlete to double in the 100- and 200-meter dashes at consecutive Olympiads. And his anchor-leg effort in a record-setting 4x100 relay was quite a flourish.

But most of the awe was cumulative, brought on by the broad scope of his remarkable career and perhaps accented somewhat by his ability to overturn his perceived vulnerabilities.

None of the individual races, however, were particularly memorable by Bolt standards.

He didn't set any world records in his individual events or even come all that close. He was money in the big moments, but he didn't drop our jaws the way he did in Beijing.

We'll revisit these Games as confirmation of Bolt's all-time greatness, but not as an expression of his fullest self.

At his best, Bolt made us question what was humanly possible. He didn't quite do that at these Games.